Then you ask me a another
straight
forward
question,
another simple
question.
You ask me "Where is he?", pointing at my
friend.
Without hesitating, I answer "He's there", looking at him.

"Very good" you say.

Then you ask my friend the same
straight
forward
question,
the same simple
question.
You ask him "Where's
Laurence?",
pointing at me. Without hesitating, my
friend
answers "He's there", looking at me.

"Very good" you say.

Then after a pause, you say something which astounds me with its
profundity, which shocks me
awake
with its
simplicity.
You say "So the consensus of what you both say is: you're both
here ... AND ... you're both there, right?".

A silence like a
velvet
curtain suddenly descends and hangs thick in which I find myself
struggling to make meaning of his
masterfully
crafted
paradox.
Nobody is saying anything.

I get a
slippery,
disconcerting feeling. It's as if the carpet's slowly sliding out from
under my feet. I gamely say (and it sounds lame even to myself)
"Thereshows up
for me here", pointing to my head (to my
eyes,
to my
brain
actually).

Then you say to both of us "When you say thereshows up for you
here", pointing to your head (to your
eyes,
to your
brain,
actually), "I say that's not where thereshows up
for you. If you say thereshows up
for you here" you continue, pointing to your head (to your
eyes,
to your
brain,
actually), "I say that's a concept. I say
that's not where thereshows up
for you in your experience. What I want you to do is to
point to where thereshows up
for you in your experience.".

We both hesitate briefly. Then after a
moment,
my
friend
points at me here, and I point at him there.

A-Ha! and Eureka! It seems for both of us,
there doesn't
show uphere, after all. For both of us, when we look at where
thereshows upas an experience and not as a concept, thereshows upthere.

In a flash, I've
gotten
that my here and my there are really the
same, and my
friend
has also
gotten
that his here and his there are really the
same. But it's more than that, actually. In the same flash, I've just
gotten
that my here and my
friend's
here are really the same, and my
friend
has also
gotten
that
his here and my here are really the same.

But it's still more than that, actually. In the same flash, both my
friend
and I have just
gotten
that there doesn't
show uphere in our heads ie in our
eyes,
in our
brains.
Rather, we've both just gotten that thereshows upthere. Really!

It's gone silent again. The
velvet
curtain has descended again. My
friend
and I aren't saying anything again. But this
time,
neither of us are struggling. This time we're both profoundly
moved.